notes on interesting digital ephemera

December 03, 2016

One of Amazon's little secrets is they sell uncertified products. You can get into trouble with cables, adapters and chargers (among other things) and its best to stick with products from the original manufacturer - which Amazon also sells). If you want to get quality certified products - including MFi kit - try Monoprice .. a good price on honest-to-goodness certified kit. My experience is it is at least as good as what came with your device and often better at a lower price.

November 26, 2016

About this time of year I field questions about which telescope to buy for a budding amateur astronomer. My advice is to stay away from telescopes at first and concentrate on learning the sky. There are amazing sights that can be enjoyed with a pair of binoculars at relatively low power. Ten to fifteen power is great, but you'll want big lenses ... 50 millimeters or more if possible. You can spend a lot on serious instruments - thousands in fact, but for beginners something like this Celestron 15 power with 70 millimeter objectives is ideal and inexpensive. You can also use them for birdwatching.

November 21, 2016

October 27, 2016

Reader Emily gives a two thumbs up to female action figures from IamElemental for kids of an action figure age.

snip

...

It’s character, not characters.™

“Every single figure practically radiates with evidence of the care and enjoyment put into them… They call back to a time when toys really were designed with kids in mind.” – The Figure in Question

“In the interest of creating strong women, the creators did not make them more masculine. They look like normal, fit, healthy, strong women. These figures’ strongest visual point is, first and foremost, their strength. After you take in their strength and power – then you realize, ‘oh, they also happen to be female, awesome.’ It’s so progressive, I am crying tears of joy.” – CC

“To be honest, when I ordered the figures, I had no idea it would give us such a good way to reinforce some of those really hard conversations we have had to face this year. I imagine other children facing adversity would be perfect recipients for your figures…Every child should be given the tools to fight whatever…life throws in their way.” – Behavioral Therapist

February 21, 2016

A friend in fashion who has been involved in haute couture recommended 'Dior and I' as the best documentary on the art. It focuses on the period where Raf Simons came to Dior and focuses on the Dior's atelier at Dior. The caveat is I’m fascinated by the process of how things, particularly things that are difficult to make and/or involve serious craft, are made. In this case you see the dynamics of the core resource - the craftspeople in the atelier - as they work with a new person. $5 on iTunes .. probably similar elsewhere.

January 01, 2016

The test I use for sites like this is dex - a unit used mostly in astrophysics. Hydrogen and helium accounts for most of the physical matter in the Universe (there is a larger amount of dark matter and dark energy, but that's another things entirely). Astrophysicists call any other elements 'metals' - the metallicity of a star is the fraction a star's mass made of of these metals. These are expressed in decimal exponents with the Sun as the reference of 0 (100 = 1 for the Sun) - so a dex of -1 means the star has a metallicity of 10-1, or a tenth that of the Sun.

December 05, 2015

Escape Pod is a scifi podcast that presents about a story a week - some from scifi greats and others from new authors. This week's piece, The Semaphore Society, is by Kate Heartfield and is read by Christiana Ellis. on a handicapped young woman ... A printed version appears on the page, but go for the audio...